Convection oven appliances generally include a cabinet that defines a cooking chamber for receipt of food items for cooking. Heating elements are positioned within the cooking chamber to provide heat to food items located therein. The heating elements can include a bake heating element positioned at a bottom of the cooking chamber and/or a broil heating element positioned at a top of the cooking chamber. Convection oven appliances also include a fan or other mechanism for creating a flow of air within the cooking chamber. Convection oven appliances can also include a convection heating element for heating the flow of air within the cooking chamber.
During operation of convection oven appliances, food items with the appliances' cooking chamber are heated through various heat transfer mechanisms. Such mechanisms include: (1) radiation from oven walls, an oven door, and/or any exposed heating elements in the cooking chamber; (2) various convection mechanisms; and (3) conduction from a surface supporting the food items, e.g., a rack. Radiant heat transfer can provide a significant portion of the heat transferred to food items within the cooking chamber when the oven appliance is at a steady-state operating temperature.
Generally, oven appliances are preheated prior to inserting food items into the appliance's cooking chamber. Such preheating can be necessary to heat the oven appliance's walls, doors, and other exposed surfaces and bring the oven appliance up to the steady-state operating temperature. Prior to such preheating, radiant heat transfer from such components can be insufficient or unsuitable to properly cook food items within the cooking chamber. Generally, oven appliances activate the broil heating element and the bake heating element during the preheat cycle. In particular, the broil heating element and the bake heating element are generally operated a single constant power output during the preheat cycle until the steady-state operating temperature is obtained. During such preheating cycles, food items placed in the cooking chamber may not cook properly because the amount of heat provided to the food items and balance of such heat does not match that of a preheated (steady-state) oven. In particular, the top portion of the food items may cook more quickly than the bottom portion of the food items due to the activated broil heating element.
To avoid such heat imbalance, a user generally waits for the cooking chamber to reach the steady-state cooking temperature before inserting food items into the cooking chamber. However, waiting for the oven to preheat can consume a significant amount of the user's time. For example, preheat cycles can take over ten minutes to complete. In addition, valuable energy is consumed during preheating cycles that could be used to cook food items. Accordingly, an oven appliance with features for facilitating satisfactory cooking of food items during a preheat cycle of the oven appliance would be useful. In particular, an oven appliance with features for maintaining a substantially constant output of total power for cooking of food items within the cooking chamber during the preheat cycle would be useful.